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Tuesday, February 10, 2015

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Hints of Colonial Pollution Hidden in Andean Ice Cap

Traces of air pollution from 16th-century Spanish silver mines were discovered deep inside an ice cap in the Peruvian Andes, scientists announced today (Feb. 9). The researchers said it's the first clear evidence of man-made air pollution in South America from the time before the Industrial Revolution. Though the imprint of metal-rich smog was discovered in Peru, the pollution likely originated hundreds of miles away, in what is now Bolivia, at the Potosí mountaintop silver mines. "There is a long pre-industrial history of mining in Peru and Bolivia," said study author Paolo Gabrielli, a research scientist at the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center at Ohio State University.

Orion Nebula Glows in Amateur Astronomer's Amazing Photo

This stunning image of the Orion Nebula shows the bright, colorful region of the celestial object. Amateur astronomer Keith Hanssen took the image in November from Montana. "I had purchased a telescope for the first time in my life earlier in 2013 after retiring and moving to Montana. In the summer of 2014 I started taking a few deep sky objects but I was always waiting for the Great Orion Nebula to return to the evening sky," Hanssen wrote in an email to Space.com.

Cheaper robots could replace more factory workers: study

The falling cost of industrial robots will allow manufacturers to use them to replace more factory workers over the next decade while lowering labor costs, according to new research. Robots now perform roughly 10 percent of manufacturing tasks that can be done by machines, according to the Boston Consulting Group. In turn, labor costs stand to drop by 16 percent on average globally over that time, according to the research. The shift will mean an increasing demand for skilled workers who can operate the machines, said Hal Sirkin, a senior partner at Boston Consulting.

America's Amazing, Drivable Crater: Alamo Impact Yields Secrets

One of America's biggest impact craters was sliced and diced until it spread across Nevada like a plate of crudités. Evidence provided by pulverized rocks suggests the crater was more than 90 miles (150 kilometers) wide, as big as the Chesapeake Bay impact crater offshore Virginia. The findings, published Jan. 14 in the journal Geosphere, offer the most comprehensive view yet of the Alamo crater, the most accessible impact crater in North America. If you drive along Nevada's Extraterrestrial Highway, you're traveling through the Alamo impact crater.

100 Ancient Cult Sites Discovered in Israel

Some 100 prehistoric "cult sites," complete with penis stone structures and artifacts with vulva shapes cut into them, have been discovered in the Eilat Mountains, an extremely arid area of the Negev Desert in Israel. At the sites, which date back around 8,000 years, archaeologists discovered a variety of stone structures and artifacts, including stone circles that measure 1.5 to 2.5 meters across (roughly 5 to 8 feet) with penis-shaped installations pointing toward them.

SpaceX to Launch Satellite, Return 2 Spacecraft to Earth Today: Watch Live

SpaceX will have its hands full on Tuesday (Feb. 10) as the company tries to get one payload into space and bring two vehicles safely down to Earth a continent apart, all within the span of a few hours. SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to launch the DSCOVR space-weather satellite from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 6:05 p.m. EST (1105 GMT) Tuesday evening. You can watch the SpaceX launch and splashdown live on Space.com, courtesy of NASA TV. Meanwhile, SpaceX's robotic Dragon cargo capsule is slated to come back to Earth Tuesday as well, wrapping up a monthlong mission to the International Space Station.

Europe's Experimental Mini-Space Shuttle to Launch Wednesday

The European Space Agency (ESA) plans to launch an experimental space plane this Wednesday to test out technologies needed for vehicles to survive the return to Earth from space. The unmanned space plane, called the Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV), is slated to blast off Wednesday (Feb. 11) at 8 a.m. EST (1300 GMT) from French Guiana. "The crucial moments will certainly be those after the blackout phase … The signal from the vehicle after this phase will be an important sign," Giorgio Tumino, ESA's project manager for IXV, told Space.com via email.

Peruvian ice cap harbors evidence of conquistadors' avarice

By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - After vanquishing the Inca Empire with superior weapons and a touch of treachery, the Spanish conquistadors sought to satisfy their lust for riches by forcing multitudes of native people to toil in silver mines in dire conditions that claimed many lives. Scientists on Monday described evidence of this bitter chapter of South American history preserved deep in an ice cap in the Peruvian Andes in the form of residue from the relentless clouds of metallic dust spewed from the mines starting in the 16th century.

Stress May Affect Heart Attack Recovery

Stress may play an important role in a person's ability to recover from a heart attack, a new study suggests. Researchers at Yale University found that younger and middle-age men and women who had more mental stress in their lives tended to have worse recovery one month after a heart attack than those under less stress. The data also showed that the women in the study experienced greater mental stress than the men, and the researchers said this difference might partially explain why women generally recover worse than men after heart attacks. A higher level of mental stress is known to affect blood flow in the heart and is linked with hardening of the arteries, said study researcher Xiao Xu, an assistant professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut.

Moon objects found in astronaut Neil Armstrong's closet

A treasure trove of objects that were supposed to have been left behind after the first moon landing have turned up in the closet of Neil Armstrong, the first man to step onto the lunar surface, the Smithsonian Institution has said. Armstrong died in August 2012 and his wife, Carol, found the items from the 1969 lunar landing as she was cleaning out one of his home closets in Cincinnati, Allan Needell, a space history curator at the National Air and Space Museum, wrote in a recent blog.

Glacier's Groans Can Pinpoint Iceberg Calving

New research finds that sound recordings can not only capture the timing of iceberg calving, but can also help determine whether that ice is breaking off above or below the waterline, and how it is doing so. Ultimately, just by using underwater microphones, researchers hope to be able to gauge how quickly a glacier is losing ice. "Melting glaciers contribute to global sea level rise, and this contribution is really substantial," study leader Oskar Glowacki, a researcher at the Polish Academy of Sciences' Institute of Geophysics, told Live Science. And that danger is poorly understood, Glowacki said.

Drones May Aid Bird Studies Without Ruffling Feathers

Drones have become an important tool in war, but these robotic flyers could have myriad uses off the battlefield, including as bird-watchers. "More or less everyone can have access to small drones, at least in Europe," said study co-author David Grémillet, an ecologist at France's National Center for Scientific Research in Montpellier. "Both researchers and members of the public are keen to approach birds with drones," Grémillet told Live Science. In the first study of the potential effects of these drones on birds, Grémillet and his colleagues flew small, camera-equipped, four-rotor "quadricopter" drones on more than 200 flights.

SpaceX signs deal for landing pad in Florida

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla (Reuters) - Space Exploration Technologies will take over a mothballed rocket launch site in Florida to develop landing pads for its Falcon family of rockets, the U.S. Air Force said on Tuesday. A draft environmental assessment showed that SpaceX, as the California company is known, plans to build a primary concrete square landing pad measuring 200 by 200 foot (61 by 61 meters) and four round pads measuring 150 feet in diameter at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 13, which was used for 51 Atlas and Agena rockets between 1958 and 1978. The assessment was prepared for the Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees commercial space launches and landings in the United States, "This is a classic combination of a highly successful launch past morphing into an equally promising future," Brig. Gen. Nina Armagno, commander of the Air Force's 45th Space Wing, said in a statement.

Europe to test spaceplane in bid for its first reusable space tech

The European Space Agency (ESA) is due to launch an experimental spaceplane from its spaceport in French Guiana on Wednesday which it hopes will pave the way towards Europe's first reusable space transportation systems. ESA's Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV), which is the size of a car, will lift off at 1300 GMT (0800 ET) aboard a rocket before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean around 100 minutes later. IXV, which ESA says cost around 150 million euros ($169 million) in design, development and related ground support, will separate from the rocket at an altitude of 320 kilometers (200 miles) and will coast up to an altitude of 450 kilometers before beginning re-entry. While Europe is well advanced in launcher technology and in orbiting systems, it is behind the United States when it comes to systems enabling a return to earth, IXV project manager Giorgio Tumino told Reuters.

How 'Parenthood' Helped Erase the Stigma of Mental Illness (Op-Ed)

Brian Dyak is president, CEOand co-founder of the Entertainment Industries Council (EIC), and executive producer of EICnetwork.tv. Through its dynamic writing, "Parenthood" has taken an active approach to mental wellness: a family-support approach. For millions of viewers, the show raised mental health awareness and showed that people can recover from such situations and live happy, productive lives.

An Evolving Guide to the (Unfinished) Universe (Op-Ed)

Thanks to the glacial pace of the publishing world, it would be almost another year and a half before the book hit the shelves, so I started (quietly) praying that there wouldn't be any new universe-shattering discoveries made before the book made it into print. Fortunately, for me at least, the Large Hadron Collider was taken off-line for an upgrade and some of the great space-based telescopes conveniently ran out of stuff like helium coolant and no major discoveries were made. The great joy of astronomy (and, indeed, science in general) is that some of the biggest discoveries — the real game changers that alter our perception of how the universe works — are those that we could never have anticipated in advance. At the time, the idea of a Big Crunch seemed to be a logical extension of the Big Bang.

5 Unexpected Home Hazards Send Too Many Kids to the ER (Op-Ed)

Dr. Vatsala Bhaskar is a board-certified pediatrician on staff at CentraState Medical Center in Freehold, N.J., where she also maintains a private practice. In a single year, 17,230 children under the age of six have been accidentally poisoned by these packets.

Yoga Becoming More Popular With Kids, Adults

A growing number of kids and adults in the United States are practicing yoga, according to new results from a government survey. Over the last decade, the percentage of U.S. adults who said they practiced yoga increased from 5.1 percent in 2002 to 9.5 percent in 2012, according to the survey, which was conducted by the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Yoga among children is also on the rise: the percentage of children ages 4 to 17 who do yoga increased from 2.3 percent in 2007 to 3.1 percent in 2012, which translates to about 400,000 more kids practicing yoga. Part of the reason for the rise may be the increase in the number of yoga studios and instructors that has occurred in recent years, making yoga more accessible to a larger number of people, the researchers said.

SpaceX Dragon Capsule Leaves Space Station for Ocean Splashdown

SpaceX's robotic Dragon capsule is headed back to Earth after spending one month attached to the International Space Station, marking the start of a big day for the private spaceflight company that also includes a satellite launch and bold rocket landing attempt. The uncrewed Dragon supply ship — carrying hardware and experiments back from the station — cast off from the space station at about 2:10 p.m. EST (1910 GMT) today, Feb. 10. Dragon will splash down in the Pacific Ocean at 7:44 p.m. EST (0044 Feb. 11 GMT), where a recovery ship is standing by to retrieve the capsule. If all goes according to plan, the splashdown should occur just hours after SpaceX is due to launch a Falcon 9 rocket carrying Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) space weather satellite into orbit.

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Monday, February 9, 2015

FeedaMail: Science News Headlines - Yahoo! News

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SpaceX Launch of DSCOVR Space Weather Satellite Delayed by Radar Glitch

The spaceflight company SpaceX aborted the planned launch of a long-awaited space weather satellite on Sunday, as well as a novel rocket landing test, due to problems with a U.S. Air Force ground radar tracking system. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was less than 3 minutes from launching the Deep Space Climate Observatory into the sunset sky above Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida when the radar issue forced the delay. "Air Force tracking radar went down. Launch postponed to same time tomorrow," SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote on Twitter after the delay.

How Would the World Change If We Found Alien Life?

How extraterrestrial life would change our world view is a research interest of Steven Dick, who just completed a term as the Baruch S. Blumberg NASA/Library of Congress Chair of Astrobiology. The chair is jointly sponsored by the NASA Astrobiology Program and the John W. Kluge Center, at the Library of Congress. Dick is a former astronomer and historian at the United States Naval Observatory, a past chief historian for NASA, and has published several books concerning the discovery of life beyond Earth. "If we found microbes, it would have an effect on science, especially biology, by universalizing biology," he said.

Human Cadavers Provide New Skin for Chronic Wounds

Human skin from cadavers that has had its cells removed can help treat wounds, researchers say. This new treatment could prove especially helpful for chronic skin wounds, which are a growing threat to public health, scientists added. With an aging population and increasing rates of diseases linked to ulcers and other skin wounds, such as diabetes, obesity and heart disease, the prevalence and costs of such wounds are likely to rise in the future, said study senior author Ardeshir Bayat, a bioengineer and clinician-scientist at the University of Manchester in England. In the past three decades, scientists have developed a variety of skin substitutes to help treat wounds.

Global Warming May Spawn More Southeast US Tornadoes

March, April and May. They found that while the yearly tornado total will climb by 2080, the number of tornadoes will also vary wildly from year to year. "We see this trend in a lot of extreme weather," said lead study author Victor Gensini, a severe storms climatologist at the College of DuPage in Illinois. In the future, tornado season will also peak earlier, in March instead of May, the study reported. Typically, climate models can't predict how global warming will affect tornadoes because the storms are smaller than the resolution of climate models.

Killer Shrimp Could Invade the Great Lakes

Killer shrimp, creatures that indiscriminately slay other animals without eating them, may soon join the list of invasive species living in the Great Lakes, a new study finds. But government regulations for the exotic pet trade and commercial shipping may impede the shrimp's arrival, the researchers said. More than 180 invasive species have made the Great Lakes basin their home in the past 200 years. Government regulations have curbed the introduction of new invasive threats, but the lakes are still vulnerable, the researchers said.

Mysterious Stone Carving May Contain Old Message

A weighty stone carved with a mysterious pattern that may be writing has been discovered in a garden in Leicester, England. The hefty carving was up for sale as a garden ornament when archaeologist and TV presenter James Balme found it. The carving, which was very dirty, may have been plowed up many years ago, Balme said. When he was done conserving it, Balme saw a stone carving with an extremely complex pattern that is difficult to describe.

Cost-of-Smoking Estimates Were Grossly Exaggerated

Smoking a pack of cigarettes a day will cost a person upwards of $2 million in tobacco costs and other expenses over his or her lifetime — at least according to a study conducted last month by WalletHub, a financial advice website. WalletHub calculated costs between $100,000 and $200,000 depending on the state where one lives, based on a recalculation of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at a population-wide level.

Fires Intensified Deadly Tornado Outbreak

One of the deadliest tornado outbreaks in U.S. history was strengthened by smoke from burning farmlands in Central America, a new study suggests. The hardest hit states were Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia, which were struck by 15 tornadoes ranked EF-4 or higher on the Enhanced Fujita Scale. There were also four powerful EF-5 tornadoes — the highest possible tornado ranking — as severe storms raked through these states. Researchers now say that air pollution intensified this incredible tornado outbreak.

Tiny Drones Capture Gorgeous Views of Sizzling Lava Lake

"The drone was not able to get nearly as close to lava as I did because it literally would have melted into a soup," said Sam Cossman, the filmmaker and entrepreneur who created the video. Cossman, who used to run a tech startup that provides people with once-in-a-lifetime adventures, found a video online of a bubbling lava lake on the remote Pacific island of Ambrym, part of the nation of Vanuatu.

Is It Too Late to Get a Measles Vaccination?

The current measles outbreak in the United States has highlighted the dangers of skipped vaccinations, and some people may be wondering whether it's too late to get vaccinated now. If an adult or child had not received the MMR [measles, mumps and rubella] vaccine, "it's not too late," said Dr. Ambreen Khalil, an infectious-disease specialist at Staten Island University Hospital in New York City. "It is better to get an MMR vaccine again, if one does not remember," Khalil added. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that adults who were born after 1956 get at least one dose of the vaccine, unless they can show that they have either been vaccinated or had all three diseases that the MMR vaccine protects against.

SpaceX Launch of DSCOVR Satellite, Rocket Landing Try Delayed to Tuesday

SpaceX has delayed the planned liftoff of a long-awaited space weather satellite and an ambitious rocket landing attempt another 24 hours, to Tuesday evening (Feb. 10), due to weather concerns at its Florida launch site. On Sunday, a U.S. Air Force ground radar malfunction delayed SpaceX's launch of Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) atop the private spaceflight company's Falcon 9 rocket. The mission was tentatively rescheduled to today, but has since been pushed back another day to Tuesday, when weather conditions are expected to be more favorable for launch, NASA officials said in an update. You can watch the SpaceX launch live online beginning at 5 p.m.. EST (2200 GMT), courtesy of NASA TV.

SpaceX launch with deep-space weather buoy reset for Tuesday

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - Space Exploration Technologies will try again Tuesday to launch a Falcon 9 rocket with a U.S. satellite intended to watch for threatening solar storms, NASA said on Monday. Liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida had been planned for Sunday, but was called off two minutes before launch because of a problem with an Air Force radar system needed to track the rocket during flight. Launch was retargeted for Monday, but a poor weather forecast prompted SpaceX, as the California company is known, to reschedule for Tuesday. Liftoff with the Deep Space Climate Observatory, or DSCOVR, a partnership of NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is now planned for 6:05 p.m. EST/2305 GMT.

Ex-Los Alamos scientist to be sentenced in nuke spy sting

A former Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist who pleaded guilty to trying to help Venezuela develop a nuclear weapon is set to be sentenced. Pedro Leonardo Mascheroni and his wife, Marjorie Roxby ...

NASA Probe Spies Mars Rover Curiosity from Space (Photo)

Call it a Red Planet two-for-one. NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) spied the agency's Curiosity rover and snapped the newly released image on Dec. 13, 2014. At the time the picture was taken, Curiosity was examining the "Pahrump Hills" outcrop at the base of Mount Sharp in Gale Crater, according to NASA. MRO's high Resolution Imagining Science Experiment (HiRISE) took the picture, which covers an area of approximately 360 yards (330 meters), NASA officials added.

More Floods Hitting Midwest States

Floods have become more frequent in the central United States over the past 50 years, a new study finds. However, even though the events are striking more often, floods aren't bigger in size, said study co-author Gabriele Villarini, a hydrologist at the University of Iowa. "It's not that the largest floods are getting larger, but that we are experiencing a larger frequency of flood events," Villarini told Live Science. The new research was sparked by a 2013 study by Villarini and his colleagues that discovered heavy rainfall days are becoming more frequent in the Midwest.

Amazing! Original Magna Carta Copy Found in Scrapbook

An original copy of the Magna Carta has been discovered in a scrapbook in Kent, England. The tattered document dates back to 1300, 85 years after King John of England was compelled to sign the first agreement limiting the rights of kings. This version was issued by King Edward I (King John's grandson), who was under pressure from the church and the barons to reaffirm good governance, said Sophie Ambler, a research associate with the Magna Carta Project. The copy was then placed in the Sandwich archive in Kent, where it was forgotten, Ambler told Live Science.

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